Weather and Traffic

Slow moving front brings record rains to Florida peninsula

Late Friday Gulf of Mexico satellite shows the southern half of the Florida peninsula cloudy and showery. (Credit: NOAA)

UPDATE: A half-inch of rain fell this afternoon at PBIA, but Palm Beach reported a heftier 1.56 inches. Twenty-four-hour totals include 2.25 inches in Boynton Beach; 2.22 inches in Lantana; and 1.47 inches in Jupiter. Coastal Broward County received up to 3 inches or more, a Coastal Miami-Dade County reported more than 5 inches in places. In the Keys, an observer near Islamorada reported 6.06 inches.

ORIGINAL POST: Precipitation records continue to fall as a sagging cold front allows copious moisture to stream into the Florida peninsula from the south. But it looks like Palm Beach may be north of the heaviest precipitation.

Miami International Airport picked up 1.36 inches of rain Thursday, easily beating the one-day record for Dec. 3 of 0.75 of an inch. MIA has already recorded 2.31 inches of rain this morning, edging out the previous record of 2.29 inches on Dec. 4, 1997, and that total should grow steadily throughout the day, forecasters said.

Both Miami-Dade and Broward counties are under a flood watch.

Naples’ 0.22 of an inch on Thursday was enough to bust the record of 0.14 of an inch for the date set in 1981. And Key West’s 1.15-inch total Thursday beat the old mark of 0.61 of an inch set in 1905.

To the north, Vero Beach checked in with 1.08 inches, breaking the single-day record of 0.32 of an inch set in 1981.

Palm Beach International Airport’s Tuesday total of 1.52 inches was well short of the record rainfall for the day — 3.63 inches, set in 1912.

Thursday’s record at PBIA was 1.04 inches set in 1905, but the airport only reported 0.37 of an inch as the heaviest rain stayed to the south and then was pushed off to the east over the Bahamas.

A weather observation station off Royal Palm Way on the island recorded .40 of an inch of rain Thursday and had picked up another .10 of an inch today through 8 a.m. PBIA reported .04 of an inch early this morning.

Although the flood watch remains to the south of Palm Beach, don’t plan on a weekend at the beach. Window shopping will require an umbrella. Rain chances are at 90 percent today and slip to 50 percent tonight, but will stay in the 50-60 percent range through the weekend.

Skies are expected to be mostly cloudy with northeast winds whipping up to near 30 mph in gusts, the National Weather Service said.

Meanwhile, temperatures are expected to remain above average in South Florida through next week — “no signs of any significant cooling here,” National Weather Service forecaster Dan Gregoria said in this morning’s weather analysis. In fact, he said, the rain/ snow line is expected to be north of Minnesota. “Very impressive for December,” he said.

There is not a lot of freezing weather anywhere. New England and the Midwest have been in the 40s. Philadelphia was 60 on Wednesday. Even Portland, Maine was 44.

The nation’s high temperature was 84 on Thursday, in Miami and Hollywood.